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This BLOG is for LLNL present and past employees, friends of LLNL and anyone impacted by the privatization of the Lab to express their opinions and expose the waste, wrongdoing and any kind of injustice against employees and taxpayers by LLNS/DOE/NNSA.
The opinions stated are personal opinions. Therefore,
The BLOG author may or may not agree with them before making the decision to post them.
Comments not conforming to BLOG rules are deleted.
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"The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration said Friday that Los Alamos had during the previous week sent small amounts of an unidentified special nuclear material via air cargo to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California..."

Ok folks this one is pretty crazy, I mean really crazy, how on earth do you send this stuff on a plane to 2 locations? Lets get a few things out of the way, this not due to arrogant cowboy scientists. If I was to make a guess this sounds like the brought in non experts from the outside who have no experience with a place like LANL but hey we come from "Industry" and LANL is for profit so you ship stuff by airmail to meet profit deadlines because money is at stake and money does not sleep. I would guess this will be another don't consult scientists because they do "get it" but management gets it and it must be shipped so ship it. It will be another WIPP like situation.

Come one some manager has to behind this, how on earth do you pull something like this off. Of course LANS has been on the hire anybody and everyone like crazy thing so who knows. But hey LANS is one they way out they may have wanted to get one last big bonus year before the the ship sinks but they cut too many corners at the last second to meet every deadline, so bye bye our 90 mill 2017 fee...Daaammmm.

I wonder if the Fed Ex plane carrying LANL's "small amount" of radioactive nuclide(s) on the way to LLNL flew over San Francisco, California, population 800,000 on the way into SFO International Airport. Nice.

I wonder if the Fed Ex plane carrying LANL's "small amount" of radioactive nuclide(s) on the way to LLNL flew over San Francisco, California, population 800,000 on the way into SFO International Airport. Nice.

June 27, 2017 at 4:38 PM

The pilots got more radiation exposure from the flight at altitude than anyone got from the "nuclear material." What a joke.

The pilots got more radiation exposure from the flight at altitude than anyone got from the "nuclear material." What a joke.

June 27, 2017 at 6:08 PM

Not if the plane crashed into downtown San Francisco. That's why the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR 71) explicitly prohibits the transport of nuclear materials ( expect under very limited conditions), not to mention the container used was not an approved container for air shipment, likely a Type A container. Type B containers are required for air shipments. And if you question the likelihood of such a scenario, why is LANLs Pu (PF-4) facility designed to survive the ~10,000 year unlikely earthquake? By the way, do we know the amount of nuclear materials that were transported? Incidentally, to expose the Fed Ex pilots without their prior knowledge, to an unknown amount of radiation, is not acceptable. Also, read 10CFR71.8 Deliberate Misconduct.

Did LLNS receive official "advanced notification" from LANS specifying all details of the nuclear materials to be shipped to LLNL, including transport details, days before said nuclear materials departed LANL?

"An investigation is being conducted to determine the root cause of this incident, as well as procedures to avoid future incidents of this type. Upon completion of the investigation, NNSA will use the full terms and conditions of the contract to ensure that any responsible parties are held accountable."

Do the "full terms and conditions" include firing leadership, reduction of salary, no bonus money this year, or just an "all hands" meeting on video tape requirement?

What's most difficult for LANL in this mess is that it was a federal law that was broken, not just some DOE regulations or NNSA policy. For those interested in such differences, that moves it from civil to criminal status.

"You could actually read the contract if you really wanted to know. But you don't. You just want to vent."

Seems like your venting, and the question is reasonable given the LANS track record. There are no prerequisites to blog questions, but there are always guard dog criticisms like yours. You are trying to protect a sinking ship, but you know that. Maybe you'll get that LANS bonus after all, no matter what critical mistakes are made, people injured, or property damaged.

LANL has a cesspool culture through and through on the operations side (management and workers). They literally do not care because they believe nothing with happen because nothing ever has. Contractors will change and they will continue on....

What's most difficult for LANL in this mess is that it was a federal law that was broken, not just some DOE regulations or NNSA policy. For those interested in such differences, that moves it from civil to criminal status.

June 29, 2017 at 1:37 PM

If this is true, that indeed does put the whole situation in a different category.

"LANL has a cesspool culture through and through on the operations side (management and workers). They literally do not care because they believe nothing with happen because nothing ever has. Contractors will change and they will continue on....

June 29, 2017 at 9:46 PM"

Sounds a bit like overreach to me. As for the whole culture thing one should have some idea what it means and if the concept of culture has any actually meaning when describing business or working environments. It seems like a term that just gets thrown out as a way to avoid actual analysis or conversations. Additionally when it is used it always seem to be an agenda driven issue. You can use it to diss or dismiss anything.

For example: The whole college culture is utterly leftists, lazy and corrupt. The culture of Austin Texas is toxic poison and rotten. The culture of of hobbyists is that of a total cesspool. Automobile driving has created a culture of narcissism and hatred. The internet culture is that of jingoism and apathy. You get the point that these statements are so sweeping that they are utterly useless and the same can be said much of time that anyone uses the word "culture" that is why it is hard to take the term seriously since when one things about it has no actual value. Of course bs it is a two edged sword. I can say that we now have enough troll posters on this blog that we can determine with absolute certainty that there is a cesspool culture of bitterness and denial pushed by mediocre ex-employees with an axe to grind that everyone hated when the worked at the lab.

"Of course bs it is a two edged sword. I can say that we now have enough troll posters on this blog that we can determine with absolute certainty that there is a cesspool culture of bitterness and denial pushed by mediocre ex-employees with an axe to grind that everyone hated when the worked at the lab."

Charlie "GQ" McMillan only makes a little over $2 million per year in salary overseeing the management of LANL. It's barely enough to cover the cost of a gentleman's wardrobe filled with fine Italian silk suits and $500 Hermes leather belts. Perhaps if it was raised to something like $5 million per year he could do a much, much better job.